


wish you were here

by dxntdxdrxgs



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Jesse McCree, Blackwatch Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, ok maybe just a little comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-20 03:04:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17614217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dxntdxdrxgs/pseuds/dxntdxdrxgs
Summary: Jesse is left to face facts; he was never loved was he?It doesn't feel that warm when you're all alone.





	wish you were here

**Author's Note:**

> phew okay here's a short angsty song one shot enjoy

_So, so you think you can tell  
Heaven from hell?  
Blue skies from pain?  
  
_  
Jesse remembers all too well being young and stupid. He remembers being naive and full of curiosity, eyes wide and heart so willing and ready to love, arms ready to receive another and to just hold— he remembers that. The yearning tug and pull to have someone be there, have someone love and love gently, cradle Jesse’s broken heart and kiss it better; it was the sort of thing fairy tales consisted of but he couldn’t help it. The heart wants what it wants; isn’t that what everyone else says? Jesse let his get the best of him, let himself be young, let himself love like he never had before, without fear of having someone crack you in the jaw with the stock of a gun, and without any sort of adult inhibition.   
  
_  
Can you tell a green field,  
From a cold steel rain?  
  
_  
Jesse was twenty-five, but Gabriel wasn’t. Jesse was young, Gabriel wasn’t. There wasn’t any sort of hidden nuances there, Jesse was always reminded just how odd their arrangement was, and he tried to keep away the thoughts that gnawed and told him he was a dirty man, wanting Gabriel like he did. He was well over legal, but so was Gabriel, and looking back it wasn’t hard to see just how strange it would look to an outsider. But Gabriel wasn’t a normal man, Gabriel wasn’t elderly, Gabriel wasn’t taking advantage of him, Gabriel wasn’t so many things— the things he was, were Jesse’s firsts. At least the pleasant ones.   
  
  
_A smile from a veil?  
Do you think you can tell?  
_  
  
Growing up, his brain was set into “protection” mode, keeping to himself and guarding what he found precious. He and Ashe had to make connections, they had to make a way for themselves, and they had to be strong. Connections were left to him. After all, only one person could lead a gang, and Ashe was beautiful and strong and a symbol for resistance, bred like a dove. Jesse was dirty and stupid, so people liked to say, and he let them. Let every sour word mingle in his head and stir into a disgusting, frothing monstrosity of self hate and disgust.   
  
  
_Did they get you to trade,  
Your heroes for ghosts?  
  
_  
He remembers sunny mornings, the Blackwatch common area, and the way Gabe always acted like it wounded him to be near the others that early. He remembers stolen moments, lingering eyes, a sense of belonging and hope. “You’re beautiful,” spoken in accented English, an understanding and full pair of lips pressing to his temple every time doubt so much as tried to peek into his mind. Gabriel was always there, always brushing away the pain no one had bothered to touch for so long, striking sore nerves and gently coaxing them back from the ledge. Jesse loved that.   
  
  
_Hot ashes for trees?  
Hot air for a cool breeze?  
  
_  
He remembers the way Gabriel made promises, with his brows furrowed and tongue at the front of his teeth. He always talked gruffly, like his throat hurt, and Jesse admired the way the sound seemed to ripple from his rumbling chest like a proud lion, like a king addressing his subjects. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Jesse loved him, and that Gabriel returned it right back, not when you saw their shy eyes and hopeful promises. They would be together after this, just the two of them, and they would have dogs and cats and children and a white picket fence.   
  
  
_Cold comfort for change?  
Did you exchange,  
A walk on part in the war,  
For a lead role in a cage?  
  
_  
The second things started to go sour, it felt like they all tumbled down at once. Jesse remembers the jealousy in Gabriel’s eyes when he passed Jack, and all the late nights he spent in Moira’s lab, and all the ebbing pain threatening to form tears in Jesse’s eyes when Gabriel was gone all night. It was young naivety, wasn’t it, Jess thought; wasn’t it just wishful thinking to hope someone older, someone with a position of power, would want any more than this? Jesse always figured Gabriel would leave him, not that Jesse would be the first to go, wet eyes wide and terrified as Gabriel ushered him onto a transport out of their Swiss base. “You’re making the right choice, kid,” he’d told him, giving one last bruising kiss and one last promise, and Jesse felt for a moment like he definitely meant something. If anything happened, Jesse would be the first he’d tell; Gabriel loved him, trusted him, he was his second in command, and Jesse was more than a young, irredeemable gang rat.   
  
  
_How I wish,  
How I wish you were here.  
  
_  
Gabriel was gone as soon as the kiss left his lips, as soon as the mind behind those dark eyes had been made up, Jesse knew it. When he got on that transport, his heart hurt, because he couldn’t pretend anymore. It was so much harder without someone else supporting your lie. And when Jesse landed, when he spent those two days secluded in a small foreign town where no one knew his name, he laid his comm near the window, praying for signal. Gabriel promised, hadn’t he? Jesse spent those two days angry that his messages received no response.   
  
  
_We’re just two lost souls,  
Swimming in a fish bowl,  
Year after year.  
  
_  
The comm is cursed, Jesse decides. And when he finally gets the message, when Overwatch decides to reach out and let him know that everything is done, everyone is gone, he runs into the rainy street and screams. He yells like a child and thrashes the machine to the ground, cutting his hands as he bangs his fists against the shattered screen, praying that god would let him bleed out here. You promised me, he had screamed at the dark sky, you said I didn’t have to be alone anymore.   
  
  
_Running over the same old ground.  
_  
  
Jesse gets older, like everyone does. He visits the grave in some fucked up token of gratitude. He doesn’t buy flowers, and he spits tobacco from his ruined cigarillo on the headstone, grimacing and telling the world that he doesn’t care. There’s no reason to cry for a dead man, a man who lied and killed, and there’s no reason to love a stilled heart when yours still beats painfully clear everyday. So Jesse doesn’t mourn, knows Gabe doesn’t fucking want that, and then he cries and cusses himself for even giving a damn what he thinks, and that after all these years the man who broke his heart still owns it.   
  
  
_And how we found,  
_  
  
He grows up and does what he has to. He reminds himself to be a hero, because that’s all he’s ever wanted, no matter how much he tried to convince everyone else. He couldn’t play the antihero, the neutral party, not when the world was soaking itself in blood and tears trying to stay upright. And when he lost his arm, he went to Ashe, and she understood so well. It made him sick to see her again, the way she wasn’t callous, the way she had his arm built with a skull engraving, kissed his hair and told him she’d always leave a light on for him. It made him sick to realize what he’d left to chance, who’s hearts he himself had shattered in lieu of his own desires, and he wept. He cried until his tears dried in sticky tracks on his cheeks and he couldn’t make another sound. He answers the recall when it’s sent out.   
  
  
_The same old fears,  
_  
  
Talon tore apart his family; Jesse knows it, he knows the organization to be his penultimate enemy and the guise for everything wrong with the world. So when he’s trapped on that rooftop with the Reaper staring back at him, why can neither of them shoot? Why does Jesse scream when Reaper speaks the first time, a guttural and animalistic noise tearing through his throat and terrifying the birds that had been perched beside them? Why does Jesse cry, why does he shoot the man now, knowing it won’t change a thing, why does he let that bullet leave his gun? Why does Jesse feel his heart shatter when he takes that mask off and why does he feel a weight lift all at once? Gabriel isn’t himself, is he? This corpse, this face— they were so much closer in age now, and he feels the pity when the beast’s eyes land on his arm and Jesse yells again, asks the creature why he’s alive, why he’s hurting him like this, why he’s a liar. And Gabriel doesn’t speak, just kneels to hold him, and despite his weak kicks and halfhearted punches, Jesse doesn’t get away. He just sobs.   
  
  
_Wish you were here._


End file.
